Help with my birds nest, please

kelp47

Member
Hi all. I hope someone can help me figure out what's going on with my birds nest coral. I bought this a couple of months ago, and it went on a wild growth spurt after moving to my tank. The polyps were out and the color was beautiful. Now over the last couple of weeks, it seems to be losing some color, and I really am not sure what I'm looking at with the polyps. Some branches on one side are bright pink and almost look rubbery. Other branches have polyps that seem to be halfway extended. Some look like they're bleaching. I had a hunch that I might actually be giving it too much flow because it is close to a powerhead, so I turned the powerhead up a bit so it received less direct flow. I also thought I might need to increase the photo period, so I added an hour on to the beginning for a total of 10 hours with the full-spectrum lights on (more with the actinics). The coral sits on the highest point in the tank, which is about a foot or so from the bulbs. I run a 6-bulb ATI fixture.

I haven't test the water for calcium yet, but this hasn't been a problem for me since it's the only sps in my tank. I'm going to run some tests tomorrow, and do a water change, but I thought I'd go ahead and post some photos now to see if anyone can spot something obvious that I don't know to look for.

One side, you can see the varying polyp behavior here.
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Other side, looks more bleached.
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One more thing... I do have some kind of tube worm at the base of the coral. It's the kind that shoots out a web-like material to catch food. I can't remember what it's called. I do blow the web off occasionally, but I have not tried to get rid of the worm yet because the coral didn't seem to mind for quite some time. I doubt that's the main problem here, but I should probably look into getting rid of the tube worm.
 
Hi Kelly,

how long has this tank been setup? Alk, Calcium, Salinity, other measurements? Do you test on a regular basis to ensure these are stable?

This appears to be a similar birdsnest to one I have which grows extremely fast and random and is yellow / washed out in too much light, pink in perfect light, and a nice greenish with some pink in lower light. You've got a really bright fixture over your tank so I might be inclined to move it down or the lights up to see how it responds.

Oh, and throw those hermits off the coral against the glass with a stern warning to stay OFF. Seriously though, they may be picking at some algae which could indicate the coral is struggling a bit.
 
For reference, this is what mine currently looks like in moderate light. This piece got humongous in my older tanks and I kept a small branch that is now taking over the back right of my tank. The white tips are new growth and an indicator it likes the current conditions.

OMzSDc.jpg


I'm not 100% positive we have the exact same Birdsnest, there are a lot of variations. :)
 
Thanks for the feedback, Mark.

My tank has been set up since early May. I know this seems quick for adding a piece of SPS, BUT everything in it came straight from the Caribbean and I basically skipped the entire cycling process. I actually had a blenny hitchhike in the bag of sand and the move didn't phase him.

I usually keep these basic parameters for the tank:
Temp- 78-82
Ph- 7.9-8.1 (I know some would like this to be a little higher, but at this point, my tank maintains this ph constantly with no supplementation. So I'll take stability over complexity as long as the tank seems happy.)
Salinity- 1.025

I'll admit I'm not as regular at testing as I once was, but I only slacked off when my parameters were stable for some time. Below are my last readings (about a month ago). I haven't worried much about calcium and such changing since the birdsnest is my only SPS. Water changes should keep the supplies in check... which I'll be doing tonight or tomorrow night.

Ammonia/Nitrate/Nitrite/Phospate all 0
Calcium- 480
Alk/KH- 2.5/7.0

I've raised the lights as you mentioned. The coral is now 15" from the lights. If this helps, then I might just move the coral to a lower spot in the tank and save this spot for a coral with higher light demands.

FYI: Below is what my birdsnest looked like in July.
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It might be a good time to invest in a PAR meter so you don't have to guess on light levels. You might also be able to rent one at a local store or from a local reef club.

SPS are going to need stable params to stay healthy so you will have to keep on top of testing and dosing to make sure Alk stays fairly stable, otherwise most of the SPS will be generally unhappy and some will either brown out or die if Alk swings more than 1KH, sometimes less. Your light might be just fine and the parameters might be swinging over a few days, or maybe just once which caused this issue. At this point it's only a guessing game until you can get some PAR numbers and daily testing to see what's going on.

BTW, any PH above 7.8 is fine, no worries there IMO.
 
Thanks! I have a great LFS, and the owner knows me well by now. He is always very glad to help out, so he may have a PAR meter I can borrow until I can invest in one. It looks like the prices vary greatly, so I'll need to do some research on that before taking the plunge. But at this point, what's another couple hundred dollars? ha ha ha

I've been intending to make a more concrete schedule to keep up with all of my aquarium tasks (including testing), so it looks like now is the best time. I've seen the spreadsheet on RC, so I'll start there.

Thanks, again!
 
Apogee is generally considered the best if the affordable meters. You can save money by just buying the sensor and using a voltmeter. Search for that solution. :)
 
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